Forget Sriracha; That's so 2008. Make way for chamoy, the supercharged sweet-sour Mexican condiment that's barging into Houston restaurants, ice creameries and craft-cocktail bars as one of Houston's ingredients of the moment.

For years now the tangy syrup - born in Mexico as a fruit paste seasoned with hot chiles and a tart hit of lime or vinegar - has been a staple of local raspa stands. There, at summertime meccas such as Mango Island on Gessner, chamoy swirls into mango-flavored shaved ice and cubed fruit, igniting the rococo cold confection known as a mangonada.

Chamoy has snaked through paletas (our ubiquitous Mexican popsicles), too, jazzing up their clear fruit tones. Chamoy has electrified frozen margaritas at populist restaurants such as Mambo Seafood. It has spiffed up fruit salads at your local Hispanic flea market and - in its modern industrial forms - taken over shelf space at the city's Latin supermarkets.

Lately even tony Houston chefs are paying attention to chamoy. Chris Leung, the young pastry whiz who runs Cloud 10 Creamery in Rice Village, has consumed many a raspa-stand mangonada in his day, and this month he designed a tribute sundae using chamoy he makes from scratch.

Leung's version hearkens back to simpler times, in that it's all about puréed mangos, ancho chiles, honey, plus "lots and lots of fresh lime." Not for Cloud 10 the citric acid, red dyes and high-fructose syrup that go into bottled commercial chamoys: Leung's supple syrup paste blooms with big natural flavors, fruit and heat and salt and sour held in dynamic tension.

Drizzled over scoops of Leung's gentle toasted rice ice cream and mango sorbet, the chamoy throws a short sharp shock into the sundae genre. Add meticulously diced mango, a bit of streusel for texture, and the street-smart mangonada has grown up - with a $9.95 price tag and an aplomb worthy of the top fine-dining restaurants in town.

Cynics might scoff that chamoy is just gentrifying. I prefer to think that it is taking its rightful place in our civic pantry.

Over at Cuchara, the Mexico-City-style bistro on Fairview at Taft, owner Ana Beaven is serving brunch-time Micheladas not with the more familiar tomato or clamato add-ins but with an optional chamoy component. The syrup floats and drifts through the golden beer until it renders the color a pretty red-orange, like a shifting sunset. The effect is far subtler than a tomato-based Michelada, spicy but nicely austere.

Duck into the Pastry War, downtown's young bar specializing in all things agave, and you can sample the newly conceived Mango Daiquiri "Raspada," a highball of white rum, lime juice, mango and chamoy rimmed with Tajin salted-chile spice - a frequent chamoy companion. The chamoy lifts what might otherwise register as a calm, sweet liquid into something altogether more interesting as it swirls down through the ice-cube levels in the tall glass.

I asked Pastry War bartender Violet Diaz about what kind of chamoy they used, and she showed me a biq quart plastic bottle of Bokados brand chamoy, which eschews high-fructose syrup for brown sugar (closer to Mexican piloncillo) and employs guajillo chiles for heat. The Pastry War uses Bokados for a base and then doctors it for cocktails. They tasted six or seven brands to come up with a favorite, and I've got to say that Bokados is way better than the Mega brand that seems to dominate the local market.

Spring Branch native Diaz, like many young people in Houston's food industry, grew up on the complex spicy-hot-saltiness of Mexican candies, so she gravitates to the contrapuntal punch chamoy can bring to a cocktail. She made me a frozen margarita with an ounce of chamoy, served in a tall narrow glass and rimmed with Tajin, and I realized it was the answer to my plaint that frozen margaritas are usually too sweet for me. Chamoy really kicks a sweet margarita's butt right into my tolerable zone.

Look around, and you'll notice chamoy weaseling into all sorts of things. Beaver's, the neo Houston ice house, has been offering a chamoy-glazed broccoli and cauliflower dish. One of the dishes in vegan-friendly chef Staci Davis's repertoire at Radical Eats is a cucumber, carrot and jicama slaw with seasonal fruit and chamoy.

The new hipster tiki hangout in the East End, Voodoo Queen, features a cocktail called the East Side Witch Doctor involving rum, pineapple and a kicker of chamoy. And these days, upscale margaritas at Maria Selma and La Fisheria are available in chamoy versions.

I'm almost afraid to tell you that you can rent a chamoy fountain for your next party. That's right, like a chocolate fountain, except it's oozing chamoy, into which you can dip manifold fruits.

I might not be ready for the chamoy fountain. But I am contemplating a chamoy road trip.

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My research has persuaded me that San Antonio is far ahead of Houston in its embrace of chamoy, to the point that selected bars now offer chamoy-and-vodka shots, and a raspa truck called Big Daddy's Eats and Treats deals in chamoy-soaked confections that boggle the mind - including the alien-sounding green chamoy, not to mention a chamoy-coated candied apple made in house, rather than in a factory like the ones I've tasted in Houston.

That's the thing about chamoy. It's insidious. It makes sweet things much more interesting. It gets into your head and your palate and won't let go.